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SESSIONS Gertrud Bodenwieser’s The Demon Machine by Karen Mozingo, USA Workshop: reading session and presentation Many college dance curriculums have grown over the last twenty years to include emphases on non-western dance traditions in order to prepare students for an increasingly globalized world. While new courses in non-western dance history and technique have been added to curriculum requirements, dance history courses often focus mostly on the modern traditions of American dance pioneers Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Hanya Holm, and European pioneers Rudolf Laban and Mary Wigman. Yet modern dance sprang out of a wave of globalization that began as early as the late nineteenth century and included a diverse spectrum of aesthetics, including the work of dancers who emigrated from Germany and other European countries during World War II. This session seeks to address one of these gaps. Gertrud Bodenwieser (1890-1982) began her career as a dancer, choreographer, and dance teacher in Vienna in 1919. She became the first female professor of choreography at the Vienna State Academy, before emigrating to Australia just before the 1938 German annexation of Austria. Her work was rooted in a combination of Ausdruckstanz, ballet, and theater, emphasizing curvelinear movements, deep torso arches, ecstatic turns and leaps. Beyond technique, Bodenwieser’s hope for dance was "to have fought in the great revolution of freeing the human mind [and] to have lifted up a great art and placed it on the pedestal of ethics where it should stand." (*1) Bodenwieser’s commitment to dances that responded to the events of her time are reflected in her many dance dramas, including The Masks of Lucifer, The Pilgrimage of Truth, and The Demon Machine. Choreographed in 1923, between the wars and before Bodenwieser’s emigration, The Demon Machine explored the "frightening aspects of mechanization, with the dangerous effects it could have on humanity" (*2) and won first prize at the Florence International Concours in 1931. By focusing on The Demon Machine, this presentation will explore Bodenwieser’s early themes of the machine and power through examples from the notated score and discuss how experiencing the embodiment of her work can contribute to a broader understanding of dance history. *1. The New Dance by Gertrud Bodenwieser, edited by Marie Cuckson. Private edition. Rondon Studios, Vaucluse, NSW Australia, p. 98. *2. "A Dancer Speaks" by Hede Juer in Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna’s Contribution to Ausdruckstanz, edited by Bettina Vernon-Warren and Charles Warren. Karen Mozingo currently lives in Columbus, Ohio and is a Ph.D. student in the department of theatre at The Ohio State University. From 2001-2003, she was Executive Director of OhioDance, the statewide service organization, and adjunct faculty in modern dance at Stivers School for the Arts in Dayton, OH. She is a participating artist in the Greater Columbus Arts Council Artists-in-Schools program and the Ohio Arts Council Artists in Residence program. From 1999-2000, Karen was a Federal Chancellor's Scholar with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany. Karen received her M.F.A. in Dance and Choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (1999), and her M.A. in Theater Arts from Case Western Reserve University (1996).
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